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Of garments long past...
Feb. 20th, 2004 01:04 amWay, way back many centuries ago...
...okay, actually, it was back in high school. I was a bit of a peacenik, pretty solidly pacifist both on the personal and on the world-political scales. Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were among my heroes, and civil disobedience seemed like a really darned great idea. Not that there seemed to be much to disobey about. In the 1980s, with my limited perspective, the only thing worth protesting was Reagan's nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union.
My high school wasn't terribly happy with students who tried to make public political statements. The administration did like shows of school spirit, though. Teens have lots of energy, and I guess they felt that channeling it into safe, if somewhat vapid, outlets was a good way to go. So, there were occasional "dress up days". Costumes for Halloween were encouraged.
So, being the wise-acre I am, I did an end-run around their policy. I went as a hippie - dashiki, ripped and patched jeans, shaggy hair tied with a bandanna, home-made peace symbol hanging around my neck, and a big "No Nukes!" sign to carry around. I made quite a spectacle walking between classes, this sign bobbing along over everyone's heads. Early in the day I started hearing people shout, "No Nukes!" to me, holding up fingers in the "V" peace sign.
I recognized that it was half-mocking me, but I also recognized that it was only half mocking. So, my niche was born. I was the school's geek-hippie. I went home and asked my Mom about tie-dying t-shirts. Mom was big on her kids showing signs of artistic expression and individuality, and this was before tie-die had come back into vogue on college campuses. I was striking out on my own, fashion-wise, and Mom was all for it.
I've since become more moderate. I can see occasional uses for violence when other tools are not up to the task. I still wear tie-dyed t-shirts, and my own expertise with them has far outstripped my mother's. But now I wear them far less for the hippie symbolism than because they're just different, and I find crafting them to be fun. It has been a long time since I went out to make a public political statement.
But, my admiration for civil disobedience remains as strong as ever. Across the continent from my Bostonian desk is San Fransisco. And good heavens they still know how to make it an art form over there. There's more poetry, style, and panache in their Valentine's Day disobedience of gay marriage bans than in most any protest march of the past two decades or so.
The peace symbol I twisted from copper wire back in high school now hangs in it's usual place - dangling from my desk lamp about a foot from my head as I type. I've always kept it there, right in line of sight. So, even though I haven't worn it in years, perhaps I still have the right to turn to the west, hold up two fingers in a familiar "V", and think, "Far freakin' out, dudes!"
...okay, actually, it was back in high school. I was a bit of a peacenik, pretty solidly pacifist both on the personal and on the world-political scales. Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were among my heroes, and civil disobedience seemed like a really darned great idea. Not that there seemed to be much to disobey about. In the 1980s, with my limited perspective, the only thing worth protesting was Reagan's nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union.
My high school wasn't terribly happy with students who tried to make public political statements. The administration did like shows of school spirit, though. Teens have lots of energy, and I guess they felt that channeling it into safe, if somewhat vapid, outlets was a good way to go. So, there were occasional "dress up days". Costumes for Halloween were encouraged.
So, being the wise-acre I am, I did an end-run around their policy. I went as a hippie - dashiki, ripped and patched jeans, shaggy hair tied with a bandanna, home-made peace symbol hanging around my neck, and a big "No Nukes!" sign to carry around. I made quite a spectacle walking between classes, this sign bobbing along over everyone's heads. Early in the day I started hearing people shout, "No Nukes!" to me, holding up fingers in the "V" peace sign.
I recognized that it was half-mocking me, but I also recognized that it was only half mocking. So, my niche was born. I was the school's geek-hippie. I went home and asked my Mom about tie-dying t-shirts. Mom was big on her kids showing signs of artistic expression and individuality, and this was before tie-die had come back into vogue on college campuses. I was striking out on my own, fashion-wise, and Mom was all for it.
I've since become more moderate. I can see occasional uses for violence when other tools are not up to the task. I still wear tie-dyed t-shirts, and my own expertise with them has far outstripped my mother's. But now I wear them far less for the hippie symbolism than because they're just different, and I find crafting them to be fun. It has been a long time since I went out to make a public political statement.
But, my admiration for civil disobedience remains as strong as ever. Across the continent from my Bostonian desk is San Fransisco. And good heavens they still know how to make it an art form over there. There's more poetry, style, and panache in their Valentine's Day disobedience of gay marriage bans than in most any protest march of the past two decades or so.
The peace symbol I twisted from copper wire back in high school now hangs in it's usual place - dangling from my desk lamp about a foot from my head as I type. I've always kept it there, right in line of sight. So, even though I haven't worn it in years, perhaps I still have the right to turn to the west, hold up two fingers in a familiar "V", and think, "Far freakin' out, dudes!"
